Happy for any comment on my 1st homemade sluice

[gusku]

I made this because I did`nt have enough money to buy one, and everything was going good, I kept it under 15 $, until I saw prices on miners moss and v-matting ! Now its almost as expensive as a bought one.. Had to make it all out of wood because I dont got tools for metal. The "expanded metal" is cut out of one of those anti-spin things you put under the wheels of your car if you get stuck in snow

Anyways, I was looking for comments on the miners moss in the end there, do I need to secure it to the bottom somehow? It is easy to pull up , will i get underflow? I put a stopper piece there, as adviced in this thread http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/sluicing/399806-awesome-mod-miners-moss.html It is held down on the sides, but not on the end of it

It has v-matting under the moss all the way.

Is the flare too small?

And yes, its pretty heavy! Though it is smaller than it looks on the pictures, just under 6 " wide (working area), and about 45" long. Flare is 14"
Is it way too narrow?

Any comments are appreciated!

 

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[Thurman]

Nice craftsmanship Gusku. Sturdy. Bullet proof! I don't quite follow the lateral boards at the head of the sluice. Looks like lots of stuff will get captured there. I do not know much about miners moss but the ribbed material under it may be overkill (redundant), the experts here will sure let you know. As for the big orange stuff, it could be gang busters or not. The gold will let you know! Unique in my experience, may start a new trend!! Almost hate to see it get all muddy.

Best regards, Thurman

 

[BagLady]

I like it. Are you going to seal the wood?

 

[gusku]

Thanks for the encouraging words Thurman! here is better look at that board thingy i put at the head,one of my "inventions" , just made alot of different cuts into a board with a handsaw, hoping that at least a couple of them would work, in case the orange "expanding metal" wasnt. Think you are right a lot of crap will accumulate there, been thinking i might should throw it away and just put a v matting there instead.







And a better look at the orange spin mat. Hard plastic, could cut it with some big scissors and handsaw

 

[gusku]

Thanks baglady, yes I have sauced it in with half a bucket of floor laquer, dont think its 100% waterproof but was all i had

 

[fowledup]

Nicely done I like wooden sluices, There is a youtube video of a guy that makes one out of a log onsite- pretty cool! I think your flare is ok the way it is and don't see any reason why it won't catch gold. Only thing I think I would do is stand of the two 2"(?) cross braces so they are flush with the top of the box sides, they are down in the working area and may pose an issue. Other than that only one way to find out for sure

 

[gusku]

Thanks Fowle, yeah ive seen that one too was impressive. Its not a cross brace, its a riffle i posted pics right before your reply , what do you think? Should i scrap it and put in v matting instead`?

 

[mike(swWash)]

Looks to me like if there's gold to get, you'll get it.
Nice design
Next thing you know you'll be building a will be a 4" dredge

 

[fowledup]

No not the riffle piece, I like it just like it is. I figure gold doesn't come in a uniform size and shape so I'm inclined to think sluice configurations shouldn't either. I'm refering to the two pieces about 2' wide, 10" in from each end, with 4 screws in each one, looks like they are part of the hold down set up. I wouldn't get rid of them, just raise/block them up out of the water flow as much as I could, say flush with the top of the sluice sides. You gonna do a video for us?

Where do you get that plastic expanded, I like that and haven't seen it in my neck of the woods.?

 

[Duckshot]

Nice sluice, but it looks like you built a tabernacle when all you need is a tavern. : )

You could have gone wider, I make my homemade sluices as wide as will fit into a five gallon bucket. Easier to clean and the wider a sluice is the more surface area it has for it's length, and the faster it can run, and the more you can run till it fills up.

Edit, that orange expanded-metal-looking plastic, where did you get that? Looks interesting!

 

[Goodyguy]

Looks good to me. Should do the job nicely. Good that you made it narrow because it will need plenty of flow (velocity) to maintain a good exchange of material due to the height of your expanded. The ribbed on the bottom should hold any gold that migrates beneath the moss.

While it's true that a wider sluice will run more volume of material a narrower one will run faster. Just like a river the rapids are at the narrows and calmer at the wide sections. Think of a garden hose, the smaller the diameter the more pressure it develops. So since your sluice is narrow which is a good thing in this case you will just have to be careful not to over feed it and it should do fine.

I would agree with Thurman to remove the wood riffle section at the head of the sluice. That's the area where natural stratifying of material will occur if left smooth. My advice would be to put a 1" long transition ramp the height of the moss and the width of the moss to direct the flow up and over the ribbed and moss smoothly while preventing material from wanting to go underneath.



Now go for the gold

GG~

 

[gusku]

Thanks mike, and duckshot! Yeah I went a little bit crazy with this thing. I went narrow because I was planning to be able to carry it around strapped to a rucksack or something, and as Goodguy points out I will get a faster flow. But that last part is just me beeing lucky, I had no idea i would need faster flow with high expanded ! It is pretty high indeed, hope it will work, I`ll post the results after next trip.

Fowled, now i get it! Yeah i think you are right, measured it to be 1,5 inch just now. Too low right? I need them for rigidity, so I`m going to block it up an inch or two. I was looking at it wondering if it was too low, and then i kindof forgot it. You might just saved me from going on a long trip just to discover the sluice is`nt working correctly, thanks!

Goodguy, yes I was thinking the same thing, looking at the miners moss I was like, nothing is stopping it from going all the way through, and also most of the gold around here is super small fines so i think the ribbed mat doesnt hurt. Cant really decide what to do with the wood riffle thingy, so i think i will make a transistion ramp and decide later. Would a 5 " one with ribbed matting be ok?

Now about the expanded, I live in Norway and bought it in a store called "biltema" wich is basically a hardware store + car stuff.

Heres a link Antispinnmatte, 2 stk. - Antispinnmatte, 2 stk. - Biltema

Text will be gibberish for you guys though, and i doubt they send internationally. But you could check your local car store and ask if they have something similar?

Edit: how deep should the water flow be really, say how much above the top point of the expanded?

 

[Duckwalk]

Great design all the way around. i would remove that block of massacred wood and put Vmatting or leave it as a slick plate. As good guy pointed out stratifying the material will prove essential and keep the first few riffles of expanded from packing up. Besides surviving an anti-tank mine, i think it will get the gold for sure!

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Looks nice, the only suggestion that I would reccomend would be to anchor a piece of light plastic at the head of your sluice, full width and length. This will force all fines that are floating on the surface under and so will be recovorable..I did this up at Las Colorados and recovered enough fines to pay for the operation.

Anchor the plstic above the flow of water and let it hang free the rest of the way.

 

[gusku]

Yeah its gonna save me from shrapnel if I start digging into some old ww2 explosives! Two good advices there i think, I`ll replace the massacred wood with v-mat, maybe I can make room for it in the back of the sluice. And I will absolutely do the plastic sheet thing. Thanks guys.

If someone really wants to try those anti-spin mats I guess I could buy it in the store and send it to you, but god knows how much the shipping would cost, probably atleast double of the mats themselves. Mats are 16$ for two pieces, 9, 1⁄4in x 23, 5⁄8in

Edit :a quick google search told me shipping would cost 35$

 

[beekbuster]

you have enough there to toy with it out in the field. try running just the orange expanded mat over the black micro riffle. i am always amazed how well that stuff works. and toy with the water velocity and volume, u can make that an incredible material processor. what you make up for in width could be compensated by the speed you can process material

 

[Reed Lukens]

Run it as is, you made it, it looks good. I like the riffles you made, very nice. So take it out and test it, then you decide what to do after you have seen it run

 

[Goodyguy]

As Reed points out, field testing is the real proof of any design.

You now have plenty of suggestions to try if your field testing deems it necessary. The angle and flow along with your feed rate as well as the size of classification of the material being run are critical factors as well.

If most all the gold is super fine as you stated above then you may want to classify your material down to at least 1/4" before running.
Then adjust the angle and flow as necessary to keep the sluice from either loading up or clearing too fast.

As far as how deep to run your sluice may take some testing to find the sweet spot. I would at least want to run it deep enough to cover the expanded by 1/2" or so. A lot depends on how fast the flow through the sluice is so depth is really determined by the field conditions.

With all this being said, fine tuning will come with experience. You could do most everything wrong and still may catch gold with almost any design. Of course doing everything right will lead to recovering even more gold with any design.

In lieu of years of experience, getting the most with what you have is where trial and error comes in along with picking the brains of those that have already "been there and done that" which you have shown the foresight to do.

GG~

 

[goldenIrishman]

From what I see in the pics you've posted you did a very good job on the construction of your box. Well thought out all the way around. Like others have stated, the critical thing is going to be your setup out in the field. This is a trial and error process with any new piece of equipment. There are a few general guidelines but EVERY sluice is different in what makes for a perfect angle to run it at. That angle can also change with different material types. Once you have some practice under your belt you'll be able to rough it in quickly then fine tune it from there.

 

[Duckwalk]

Good Guy has way more experience than i do when it comes to sluicing. i will say though, i classify down to 1/2 inch for my drop riffle sluice. Im not sure if it is different with expanded metal (or plastic in your case).